During certain types of surgery, especially during chest cavity surgery, the patient frequently loses large amounts of blood. Ordinarily, the lost blood is aspirated away and the patient is given a transfusion of donated blood to make up for the blood which is lost. While this system has proven to be satisfactory, there are a number of problems associated with donated blood.
In order to reduce the problems associated with donated blood, it has been proposed in the prior art to collect the blood lost from the patient and return this blood to the circulatory system of the patient. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,191,600 (Everett), an autotransfusion apparatus is disclosed which includes a vacuum source and a plurality of suction tips for immersion in pools of blood. The blood is collected in a collection chamber and is returned to the patient through a one-way valve. Another autotransfusion device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,492,991 (Dyer, Jr.) and includes a container equipped with a filter through which the blood is gravity fed back to the patient. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,993,067 (Schachet et al), an autotransfusion device is disclosed in which the blood is forced back to the patient by pressure in the collection chamber. Still another autotransfusion device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,047,526 (Reynolds et al). This patent discloses a collection chamber in which blood is continuously aspirated. A blood bag with an outwardly urged spring is connected to the collection chamber to withdraw some of the blood therefrom. The blood collected in the blood bag is then later reintroduced into the patient.
There has also been disclosed in the prior art a spring operated device which forces blood from a blood bag into the patient. Such a device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,565,292 (Jinotti).
While autotransfusion has been disclosed in the prior art, these devices have tended to be complicated and unwieldy. In addition, the devices have been relatively expensive and required careful upkeep.